About Tandem Friends School

Tandem Friends School offers a rigorous college preparatory curriculum in an environment built on Quaker values. We are a coeducational day school serving students in grades 5 through 12. Our students receive an education in which intellectual, ethical, artistic, and athletic ideals are pursued. We foster capable students who: value a spiritual, egalitarian, kind, and creative community; thrive on independent, imaginative thought; are fully engaged in learning; and, seek the best from themselves and their community.

Academics

Learning is a cooperative venture at Tandem Friends; the intellectual curiosity of students is paired with an academically distinguished faculty. Our strong college preparatory curriculum meets or exceeds admission requirements of all major institutions of higher learning. But there is a difference. Learning at Tandem Friends is a dynamic process of questioning and dialogue. Teachers invite a sense of authorship in their students. Classroom discussions encourage active thinking, listening, and articulation. Teachers constantly challenge students to realize their intellectual potential.

Athletics at Tandem Friends

Tandem Friends School encourages students in grades five through twelve to participate in interscholastic sports regardless of their previous experience or attained skill level. Our no-cut sports policy allows students to try new sports, or play multiple sports during the year.

Arts at Tandem Friends

Tandem Friends has a long tradition of commitment to and accomplishment in the arts. All students are encouraged to develop and explore their unique potential in all aspects of the creative arts. In the Middle School, fifth through eighth graders take one semester of drama and one semester of art each year. Fifth and sixth graders take a music class; there is an eighth grade rock band. In the Upper School, arts electives abound in digital film, visual arts, drama, and music. Upper School drama productions (three a year) rehearse after school.

Student Life

Every school offers academic classes, dedicated teachers, classrooms and computers, sports fields, gyms and locker rooms. Tandem Friends is no different. What sets us apart is the amazing sense of community that exists between faculty and students, faculty and parents, faculty coworkers, the school and the many organizations our community service projects touch. You can feel it the minute you set foot on campus - a sense of caring kindness and connections to one another.

Support Tandem Friends

Since 1970, Tandem Friends School has educated the young people of the Charlottesville area to truly "let their lives speak." And, just as we teach our students to value mankind and all that each of us has to offer, we ask you to express your support for the teaching and learning that happens here daily through the generous gifts you give.

Community Service

Since our founding in 1970, our students and faculty have participated in community service. When Tandem became a Friends school in 1995, that original spirit of service was re-affirmed and encouraged by the Quaker testimony of service as a value in life. Service here has never been reduced to a certain number of hours or to a particular graduation requirement. It is part of life in and outside the classroom. Throughout their years at Tandem Friends, students explore the many ways to help their community be a better place. Their concerns extend from the local to the global.

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There are three full days set aside for students and faculty to participate together in service. Older students are able to apply to be service leaders who work with faculty advisors to coordinate the work days of their groups. Students make choices from service organization options, and serve the same organization throughout the year. They may also commit to doing service work with their chosen organization beyond the requirement of the whole school.

During Emphasis Week each spring, students and teachers put aside regular school activities and take part in faculty sponsored courses, activities, week-long field trips, or career-oriented internship programs. A significant number of Emphasis Week offerings are service oriented. Students have built houses for Habitat for Humanity, performed hurricane relief in Mississippi, worked on Native American reservations, hosted the PACEM homeless shelter in Charlottesville, worked with the homeless in large cities, cleared trails and upgraded local camp facilities, worked at a school in St. Vincent, worked on housing in Appalachia, and more.

Click on Read More to review a partial list of the organizations Tandem Friends students have been involved with recently. Additionally, under the guidance of the Student Senate, Tandem Friends' students and faculty donate food for, assemble and deliver holiday food baskets at Thanksgiving and winter holidays for the needy that contain full holiday meals, from turkey and stuffing to dessert.

In Middle and Upper School grades, service learning is an integral part of the Tandem Friends curriculum. Based on classroom learning, students and teachers turn lessons from class into action in the community. Experiential learning grade trips include a service component each year - from serving the homeless to working on camp trails. Tandem Friends students share local and global concerns with one another, then work together to find ways to get involved.

Contact our Director of Community Service, Jocelyn Camarata, by email or by phone at 434-296-1303 x325 if you have questions about community service at Tandem Friends.

Community Service Director, Jocelyn Camarata

Tandem Friends School is a co-ed Quaker day school for grades 5-12 in Charlottesville, Virginia.